Music

Johnny Cash Citation Forced Into High Court Opinion

A new dissent cites Johnny Cash for wisdom in addressing the rights of prisoners. That's actually a subject The Man In Black sang about a lot.

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Johnny CashJohnny Cash sang a good deal about the criminal justice system. He lamented being stuck in Folsom prison, had felt pretty bad about cocaine, and the trouble with deadbeat dads. So it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine an enterprising jurist drawing from Cash’s oeuvre for rhetorical flourish. But this citation from a known Johnny Cash superfan might be the result of a friendly professional wager.

Johnny Cash was born in Arkansas in 1932, and it’s to the state of his birth we go to find a hot-off-the-presses slip opinion from the Arkansas Supreme Court in the case of Trujillo v. State. Supreme Court Chief Justice Howard Brill opened his dissenting opinion quoting from Starkville City Jail, recounting a time the legendary singer was thrown in jail overnight without an opportunity to argue before a magistrate or have the opportunity to be released on bail. The quote is not glibly inserted because Trujillo’s case also deals with bail and the conditions jailers place on release. Trujillo was thrown into jail and told that he could only pay his substantial bail sum in cash — a result the Chief Justice sees at odds with the Arkansas Constitution.

Chief Justice Brill is a noted Cash fan. Prior to taking his seat on the bench, he was a Civil Procedure professor at the University of Arkansas[1] and every year celebrated Johnny Cash Day by coming to class dressed in black. What’s Johnny Cash Day, you ask? The Chief addresses this in a footnote:

The Arkansas House of Representatives calls on all Arkansans to remember February 26 of each year as “Johnny Cash Day.” House Concurrent Resolution 1003 of 1969: “[H]e is truly representative of the spirit and ideals which have made our state great….”

Per a tipster, the rumor is that Chief Justice Brill had a bet with an Arkansas Court of Appeals judge as to who could incorporate Cash into an opinion first. Some may balk at judicial side bets as inappropriate, but if this rumor is true, both the Chief Justice and the unnamed appellate judge did this right. Anyone can shove a Johnny Cash quote into an opinion, but they clearly waited for an opportunity for the quote to be contextually supported and professionally appropriate. Like, a case about “cash” and bail.

That poor appellate judge must be so angry. He got so close with that death row appeal of that guy who shot a man in Carson City just to watch him die.

(The full opinion is available on the next page…)

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[1] Where he was the Vincent Foster Professor of Ethics & Professional Responsibility if you want to test out your Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory chops.

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